Death By Conscience
by Shuffle Queen
Summary: Inspired by an HBP quote, a haunting account of Valentine's Day from the eyes of a wayward Gaunt...


Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter or any of its affiliates. I am merely a fan of Harry Potter and that's why I have chosen to write this story

Written in response to Immeritus's Valentines Challenge ("This month we're asking you to supply an **HBP canon quote** supporting or implying a pairing and then write about what happens when your couple go on an excursion for Valentines Day.")

Summary: (Merope Gaunt x Tom Riddle Senior, unrequited) Inspired by this quote from pages 201-202 of the British version of HBP:

"_Can you think of any measure Merope could have taken to make Tom Riddle forget his Muggle companion, and fall in love with her instead?" _

"The Imperius Curse?" Harry suggested. "_Or a love potion?" _

"Very good. Personally, I am inclined to think that she used a love potion…"

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_Death By Conscience_

She walked slowly into the dark room, measured steps that echoed dimly off the dirty flagstone. She placed the misshapen candle she carried on the bedside table and sat down quietly on the small cot pushed up against the wall. Shivering, she opened the table drawer, the rusted handle coming off in her hand as it slid open roughly. She grabbed up the contents of the drawer with surprising alacrity, clutching the torn book, inkpot, and ragged quill to her. Chest heaving from fear and anticipation, she set the book on her lap, placed the tarnished inkwell on the table, and opened the book, frayed pages yellowed with age. She shakily dipped the pheasant quill in ink and began writing…

_February 14, 1926_

_Dear Serpentia_

_You really are my only friend and today, more than any other day in my entire life, I wish you were real and here with me. Today was actually the most wonderful day of my life but only in some ways. In the most important of ways though, it was the worst. Today, you see, I realized why Tom means so very much to me. Today, as you may know, is Valentine's Day, a silly Muggle holiday where silly Muggles buy each other chocolates and flowers and go on romantic dates for no reason other than love. I adore this holiday. It is such a genuine thing, it seems. To do all that for love – not to get love necessarily – but to really show it off for all of the world to see. I have always loved the idea, yes, but there was one thing that really stopped me from ever believing in it all. _

_Valentine's Day, you see, is for pretty girls on dates, engaged to, or married to handsome boys. I had my eye set on a very handsome boy, yes, but I am not a pretty girl. I am not even an average looking girl. Not even below average. Well, not just below average. I mean, I am well below average. I look at my face sometimes and wonder why I even bother to call this twisted concoction of flesh and hair a face. I do not really think it qualifies. And not even you, my dear friend, can convince me otherwise. If there is one thing I know, it is that I am ugly, the very definition of ugly, of disgusting, of inhumanity, of utter deformed, grotesque, looks. It is not a happy thought – even an idiot can tell you that – but it does not depress me anymore. But that is only because I have Tom. And when, not if, because I know he will, he will go, I will die. I know I will. Love is an ugly thing. Even uglier than I am. And until I fell in love, I did not think that possible. But it is. _

_But he is under my spell. My love potion. The same one that I secretly brew every two weeks in this cellar so that he does not fall out of love with me. Because if he did, I would die and that cannot happen until I have fulfilled my one dream. Today I brewed that potion and this morning, at seven o'clock without fail, I tipped the bottle of tasteless liquid into his morning cup of tea and at a quarter past, he drank it all up, his lovely eyes on me, never the wiser. He stood up from that beautiful oak table in the kitchen and walked to me. Kissed me, even, full on the mouth for a most beautiful three minutes. He told me whilst holding me in his arms, that after work that day he would take me out for a Valentine's Day dinner. I gasped, a little from alarm at the thought of people seeing us together but mostly from the disbelief that was washing over me like a warm shower on a winter's day. He kissed me again before I could say another word and left with a smile etched on his perfect lips and unnaturally white teeth. My, my, is he a beautiful one – I do love admiring his pulchritude. _

_The rest of the day went by in a haze as I took fitful naps between frantic attempts to make myself look presentable. 'Presentable' is a relative term; my version is something a little closer to below average than usual while Tom's, as I saw later, was somewhere close to the mesmeric Greek gods I read about in his old history books. But he is such a darling anyway, telling how lovely I looked, telling me he had never seen a prettier face, a finer example of beauty. All I could think about as he lied to me without knowing were my potion-making skills and my apparent finesse at making first-class love potions. Score one, I thought, for the ugly girl. _

_We ended up in a small restaurant on the nicer end of town, where we dined like the royalty he almost was and talked like all those normal, beautiful people who surrounded us on all sides. I did not even feel conscious about myself, not for one second of that precious night. I know, you see, that I will never have another one like that. A night where Tom kissed me, touched me, and made love to me as if I were Aphrodite and not just ugly, disfigured Merope Gaunt. Because that is what I am, a Gaunt. And because of what I am and knowing our pattern of luck, I have come up with a new plan. One that does not include a life veiled in deceit and lies to the only man I have ever loved and ever will love. _

_Serpentia, I want to have his child. Yes, I know, it is a mad idea. I think I am going mad. So I will carry out this plan fast and to the best of my ability. I will become pregnant with his child and then, then…then, and this is the most difficult thing that I have ever done, I will stop giving him love potion. I will tell him the truth, about my being a witch. And he will leave me, I am sure of it. And when he does, I will die. Not actually die, not yet. But I know I will not live to see my child grow up – I do not think I will live to see next year in fact. But it is too far ahead to think of that. From now on, I will bed with my Tom every night and hope that he successfully places his seed within me soon so that our child may grow. He will never know of our child – I will not give him that burden for I have ruined his life enough as it is. Every night, from the time I conceive to the second I give birth, I will have one wish…_

_"May my child be blessed with the beauty of Tom Riddle and rid of the disfiguring curse that is Gaunt."_

_How I hope for that. I will live out those months until childbirth with the memories of today and my days as Merope Gaunt Riddle. It is all I have now, all I will ever have, and all that I will die with, away from my Tom. Away from my life and towards the path of living death until I can finally leave behind this cursed world forever…_

_Farewell my friend – book you may be but friend is all I will ever see… _

Merope Gaunt (Riddle)

_

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_As you all may know, a few months later, she supposedly told Tom the truth – he left her, never to return. Her dying wish came true, yes, but only with regard to the outwardly appearance of the boy who would one day become Lord Voldemort…

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_  
_**Author's Notes**: You know, I've actually succeeded in depressing myself. I don't really know or understand the significance of that but I feel strangely upset and melancholic now. Ah, I guess that's what comes of writing such a fic like this. 

Shuffle Queen


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